Re: Good VPN for Ubuntu?
Originally Posted by
Welly Wu
Look, it's the end points that matter. These end points are outside of the scope of any VPN service provider especially if you leave behind a digital trail of evidence to collect and analyze data about you. One example would be to use social media outlets while connected to any VPN service provider's VPN gateway as evidence that you commmited a crime. In the US, you can not threaten to kill the US president or vice president or the GOP running mate on Facebook and expect to get away with that crime.
That is completely irrelevant. Of course a VPN won't protect you from that, no matter what VPN you use. Even Tor won't protect you if you leave a trail of your activities.
Originally Posted by
Welly Wu
Peer to peer file sharing is not the same as login credentials. We are talking about network traffic here. WiTopia has to log your login credentials so it knows when you use their service. This is considered to be within the realm of acceptable logging in the United States and a lot of other VPN service providers do this as well in other countries except for Sweden. What we are more concerned with here is what kind of monitoring, recording, and logging of user's network traffic happens in accordance to a specific VPN service providers' contract with its users and how that information and data is handled in the event of a digital investigation.
I am saying Sweden has more strict privacy laws, not that WiTopia has poor privacy laws. And US providers won't protect you "In the event of a digital investigation", whereas Swedish providers in general will.
Originally Posted by
Welly Wu
WiTopia does not monitor or record your network traffic. This means that they don't keep tabs on me when I download or upload data even if it was copyrighted which I am not saying is happening here in my case or not. They clear their logs every Saturdays for maintenance.
Logging login credentials is pretty much useless information if you can not corroborate it with user's network activities and traffic.
I never said they keep tabs on what you are downloading. I do not know enough information on that specific VPN to say one way or another, I'm just going off what I read on their Privacy Policy. And they clean their logs every Saturday? OK, but you have to admit that's less secure than not keeping logs period.
Originally Posted by
Welly Wu
You're making a bad assumption here. You're assuming that any type of logging is tantamount to monitoring and recording customer's network traffic data histories and you're assuming that all of those records get turned over to a court with a court order in the case of WiTopia. That is clearly not the case.
I never said that, and I don't assume it. I am saying Swedish VPNs don't have to hand over logs and aren't allowed to log. Let me say again, I never said WiTopia logs everything you do.
Originally Posted by
Welly Wu
Finally, you have understand that it's your ISP that you should be much more concerned about. In the United States, most of the major ISPs do record and monitor their customer's network traffic and the MPAA and RIAA have agreements in place to alert and warn their customers of copyright infringment which could lead to law suits. VPN does not protect against this type of illegal behavior regardless of which VPN service provider because a lot of network traffic passes through the United States of America through a complex mesh of nodes and end points that you're not aware of.
This is the nature of P2P architecture. You have no idea who is sharing that data with you and where it traverses throughout the world.
I understand that. That's one of the main purposes of a VPN. The thing you aren't understanding is that most VPNs use encryption, which prevents ISPs from logging information. That's what I use a VPN for, to protect me from my VPN. I completely understand that a lot of network traffic goes through many servers we can't be aware of, but I also understand that encryption will prevent logging of personal information, because all personal information that goes through these relays and ISPs are encrypted, usually with BlowFish, which is a quite secure encryption algorithm.
Originally Posted by
Welly Wu
VPNs also don't protect you if you register personally identifiable information on a web site that is not fully encrypted and located outside of the US and has its traffic routed outside of the US completely. This is an extreme example and it is an isolated case.
That has nothing to do with a VPN's privacy laws.
Originally Posted by
Welly Wu
Bottom line: VPNs are useful for privacy and security, but don't think that you can't be attacked while connected to a VPN gateway by visiting malicious websites. VPNs don't control any data that is collected, analyzed, and eventually used to pinpoint users' location and activities outside of their entry and exit gateways. I would be much more concerned about this fact than a VPN service provider who logs all of my data.
Who said anything about malicious websites? A VPN will encrypt data, it will not block someone from giving out personal info. Again, this is completely off-topic. There is no VPN in the world that will prevent such a thing.
Originally Posted by
Welly Wu
I got news for you. Sweden is cracking down on copyright infringment. It won't be long before it bows to pressure from foreign governments and organizations to log users network traffic and identities. Don't make the assumption that connecting to a VPN service provider in Sweden guarantees anonymity, privacy, or security. That's a big caveat that's hard to ignore now that the Pirate Bay and its affiliates are getting hammered in courts worldwide.
When did I say a Swedish VPN "guarantees anonymity"? I said they have better privacy laws than the US. I understand that they are cracking down, but does that mean they automatically have worse privacy than the US? Yes, it is hard to ignore, and when I need to do simple web browsing that I don't trust my VPN to be safe enough, I'll use Tor, on the Tails OS, and with FireFox with NoScript, etc.
Last thing: How is saying that Sweden has better privacy laws than US spreading misinformation? And how is saying US based VPNs are able to log user data (again, I'm not saying WiTopia is one of those) spreading FUD?
Please, let's end this conversation before it gets even more off-topic. The bottom line is, Sweden has better privacy laws then the US. I don't understand why you object so much to my recommendation of an offshore VPN over a US based VPN.
The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life.
~Sigmund Freud
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